Unfortunately, Before 16 have rightly identified this problem, but hitched their wagon to a terrible solution. The ban they propose won’t work, and the side effects will leave us worse off. Act has been consistent in this position, too. It is possible to agree there’s a problem without diving into the solution.
Australia’s ban is almost totally ineffective. Almost all the kids who were on social media before are still on it after the ban.
Advocates of the ban are now saying things like “oh, you just need to give it five years” and “it’s not really about the ban, it’s about the changing the platforms’ behaviour”. Suffice to say, these arguments don’t square with the earnest, urgent tones they took before the Australian experiment.
The next proposal is to double down. Ban Virtual Private Networks. Require every adult to share a Government ID with every platform they log on to.
Extreme? Sure. North Korean, yep. But these ideas are the logical destination of a ban. Motivated teenagers are generally better at using the internet than adults. So, anything draconian enough to stop them will need to be restrictive and intrusive for adults. You can have the ban, or a free society, but not both.
The unintended consequences aren’t finished. Without such overreach, young people will still access social media, but feel less able to talk to adults about what they encounter if they believe they’ve done something illegal.
Or perhaps the ban will eventually push children off mainstream platforms, to worse places on the internet. TikTok may not be great, but it’s not the worst place online.
The social media ban is dying before our eyes. It will make a terrible problem worse, not better. The core problem is that the Government is no match for teenagers when it comes to using software, unless it goes to draconian lengths most adults will never accept.
The argument might end there, but parents feel under siege from social media and smartphones, or at least their children’s attachment to them. Parental responsibility is all well and good, but there is a first mover problem. No parent wants their child to become a social outcast if every other child is on the platforms.
The first mover problem is why Government might have a role here. Government could regulate the sale and supply of smartphones to under-16s. We already do similar things with vapes, cigarettes and alcohol, and it generally works.
An alternative law would forbid the sale and supply of any “smart” device that could fit in a pocket to children under 16. That is, any device with internet access, a touch screen and a camera.
Children under 16 wouldn’t be able to buy them, and parents who bought their children a “smart” device could be liable in the same way they would be for supplying their child with cigarettes.
This would wipe out much of the current harm because social media wouldn’t be ever-present. Perhaps it is nostalgia for my own millennial childhood, but there’s nothing wrong with a “dumb” phone. No touch screen, camera or internet access, just calling and texting to arrange pick-ups and meet-ups.
Children might still hassle Mum to use TikTok on her iPad. I concede that’s a problem, but not nearly as bad as carrying around an addictive supercomputer with a high-definition video camera for your entire childhood. Here’s to saving childhood with a practical, achievable policy all can agree on.
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